A New Chapter: Our Move to Forrest Hill’s Studio

Live mixing in the control room.

When we first heard about the relocation plans to Forrest Hill, we were cautiously optimistic. Knowing that there was a studio there, and considering that our studio at Argyle House was modelled after Forrest Hill’s, suggested that moving to an existing, familiar setup on the fourth floor would be easier than starting from scratch.

The Forrest Hill studio was initially built for the Communication and Marketing team (CAM) and was used for studio shoots and media training. After some discussions, it was decided that we would relocate there and share the space as needed. CAM had recently moved to Charles Stewart House, comfortable with their filming work being mostly mobile and less dependent on a fixed studio space.

Coloured panels in the main recording space.

The first order of business in the relocation process was to coordinate with all involved parties, including the facilities and moving teams, to ensure that our schedules were aligned for the dismantling of our old studio and the setup at Forrest Hill. We dedicated a considerable amount of time to clearing out studio spaces and assessing which equipment we could reuse, recycle, or donate to other departments, such as the Film and TV department at ECA.

All our lighting equipment, cameras, tripods, and desks were transferred to the new space. Thanks to the hard work of my manager, Geoff, and the support of the facilities team technicians, we successfully integrated our existing equipment and removed most of the older setup. This revitalised the space and significantly enhanced our arrangements, involving days of rewiring, trial and error, and updating our server at the new location.

What do these improvements look like, you ask? For example, we now have twice as many RGB controllable LED panels, which allow for dedicated colour backdrops and the ability to bounce lights, thereby reducing the intensity of direct light on our guests and making their experience more comfortable.

The space is also slightly larger. Higher ceilings allow us to position the panel lights higher, enhancing lighting and framing, especially for taller subjects (ever heard of “headroom”? Tall people deserve it

New project at Forrest Hill

Green room with kitchen area.

too). The increased length of the room allows us to place cameras further back, accommodate more people in the shot, and creatively use different lenses for various effects.

Additional improvements include more audio channels, the capability to record 4K live recordings, and even the comfort of viewing those live recordings on a big TV from the sofas in our new green room (yes, you heard right—we now have a green room!).

The new Hopper Media Studio features a main recording space, a control room for operating DMX lights and live recordings, two dedicated editing suites, and a green room with a kitchen area where guests can drop their bags, relax, and prepare for filming. Our self-service audio and video recording booth, previously at Argyle House, will hopefully be rebuilt soon in the main library.

All in all, this move has allowed us to take our equipment and the insights gained over the years to a central campus location with plenty of potential, starting a promising new chapter filled with ambitions, and many more video productions in the educational space.

Please feel free to visit, but do check in case we are recording! The red lights will be on.